


Love Benji

by Crazelou



Category: Love Simon (2018), Love Victor (TV 2020)
Genre: M/M, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-17 13:40:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29593611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crazelou/pseuds/Crazelou
Summary: When Benji meets new guy in town Victor Salazar, his world turns upside down.
Relationships: Benjamin "Benji" Campbell & Derek (Love Victor), Benjamin "Benji" Campbell & Victor Salazar, Benjamin "Benji" Campbell/Victor Salazar, Benjamin "Benji" Campbell/Victor Salazar/Felix Weston, Mia Brooks/Victor Salazar, Pilar Salazar & Victor Salazar
Kudos: 27





	1. Nice Shoes

I absolutely hate mornings, especially when I have to be up early for school, I turn around and look at clock that is located on the bedside table, 6.15 I read, why does school have to start so fucking early? 

I lie in bed for another 10 or so minutes, thinking back to the conversation I had with Derek, my boyfriend, late last night. I was trying to convince him to come to the winter carnival tonight with me, an event that happens in Shady Creek every year. But as usual, he wasn’t willing to do something I wanted to do, that he had other plans that he couldn’t cancel. He wouldn’t particularly tell me those plans but I could kind of guess that he was going to go to a college party and drink with a few friends of his. 

I take my phone from the bedside table and quickly send him a text.  
Benji Campbell: 0624  
Good Morning Handsome, hope you have a fabulous day! Hope to see you soon xx

“Benji! You are going to be late for school if you don’t get a move on!” I hear my mum shout from downstairs, distracting me, I let out a moan whilst placing my phone back on the table, I slowly get out of bed, just wearing my checkered pajama bottoms, I walk over to the bathroom and have a quick shower. 

After I had my shower and finished up doing the bits I had to do in my bathroom, I went back into my room, over to my wardrobe to pick out the outfit for the day. Going through my t-shirts, I decided I would pair my Pink Floyd animals tour t-shirt from 1977 with a pair of my Skinny navy jeans. 

After changing and quickly combing back my hair, I go over and pick up my phone, I glance at it to see I have a text from my best friend Lucy but nothing yet from Derek, not like I expected to hear from him this time in the morning. 

Lucy; 0640  
Hey Benji! Take it we are meeting in the usual place this morning  
Benji Campbell: 0650  
Yep! See you there soon :D

I place my phone in my back pocket in the jeans before going downstairs to find my mum sat at the kitchen island drinking a mug of coffee and my father nowhere in sight, which I expected him to be, my relationship with him hasn’t been the same since I came out last year. 

“Where’s Dad?” I ask my mum. 

“Had to go to work early hunny”, Mum tells me. 

“As usual I take it?” 

“You’re father loves you Benji, he’s just one of the top workers at his work so he has to work so much overtime”, Mum tries to reason with me. 

“I know” I smile at her before grabbing a apple on the way out, after kissing my mum on the cheek quickly, bidding goodbye to her and leaving the house.  
\----  
Once I got to school, I walked down the corridor nodding my head to other students around me, before turning my attention towards the water fountain, after taking a quick drink of the refreshing cold water that comes out of it.

I quickly finish drinking, not wanting to hold anyone else up wanting to have a drink, I continue to walk down the corridor, pushing my long locks out of my eyes to see Felix standing down the corridor with someone who I don’t know… strange, I thought I knew majority of the school? Could it be a new person? I take a closer look to notice how nice he actually looks, although I didn’t particularly want to risk my luck, I had to know who this mysterious person is. 

“Oh hey Benji!” Felix greets me when he notices me. 

“Hey Felix!” I say to him nicely nodding my head slightly a few times at him, before turning my attention onto the new guy. I look down to his shoes, cool, I recognise that style! This guy has seriously got some nice style!

“Nice shoes!” I say to him, before carrying on, I know those shoes from anywhere! How the hell did he manage to get hold of them! “Vintage Nike courreges?” 

He nods his head, “Yeah! My mum got them at a garage sale as they were my size, she didn’t even know how cool they were… not saying that my shoes are cool”. He seems flustered? 

“No they are, it sounds like those shoes were your destiny… if you believe in that kind of thing”, I say to him sneakily trying to get more out of him, I’m curious to see where this leads, I might have a boyfriend but this guy seriously seems to be something, I don’t know?

“Yeah, yeah, i do” He pauses for a long amount of time, cmon! Give me something to go off man! I don’t want to try my luck! “Believe in… erm… cool kicks!” The school bell goes, breaking me out of a trance talking to him, reminding me that even though I still don’t know he’s name, I have class to get to. 

“Well, it was really nice meeting you… erm…” 

“Victor!” He goes in for a hand shake, I comfortably accept and take his hand and shake it, “Benji!” before nodding my head, walking away from the two of them. I walk towards my class thinking about what had just happened. Victor seems really sweet but I can’t help but feel like he was kind of holding something back I guess.  
\---  
Establish Lucy  
I eventually end up catching Lucy by her locker during the start of Lunch, “Hey Luce!” I say from behind her locker startling her. 

“Quit doing that Benjamin Campbell!” Lucy says before hitting me on the arm. 

“Ouch Luce! I’m hurt!” I create a frown face towards her,

“What are you going to do about it Benji? Go home and cry to your mummy?” Lucy teases before smirking. I shake my head at her. 

“Hey Luce, Have you seen the new kid around?” I ask her. 

“I’ve seen them? They're siblings I heard?” Siblings? There must be more than one new kid I’m guessing then?

“Are you going to the carnival with Derek tonight?” Lucy continues after I don’t say anything to her. 

“I’m going on my own I suppose, Derek has already got plans…” I tell her. 

“Ah okay, I still don’t get why you are still with that Jerk Benji!” Lucy starts, “I don’t see him doing anything you want to do, only when it fits around what he wants to do!” 

“Don’t start that one Lucy, He’s been there where I needed someone the most, I don’t think I would be here without him…” I said quietly to her so no one else could hear what we were talking about. 

“I’m deeply offended Benjamin!” Lucy puts her hands over her heart jokely. 

“You know I love you as a sister right? You were there as well but Derek was there for when I needed a… guy… like him I guess!” I tell her. We might have made a mistake and slept together when we were pissed out drunk together one evening a couple years ago, when I was still trying to figure everything out, “I wouldn’t be anywhere today without you Luce, you’re my best friend!” 

“Awww Benji I’m flattered!” She smiles up to me before continuing. “C’mon, race you to the vending Machines! I’m starving!” 

“You’re on!”  
\---  
I rush into the courtyard with Lucy by my side where we see a crowd of people crowding around two people having a heated argument I guess, I see it had something to do with that Andrew kid from the year below me and Victor. I keep an eye on them, not particularly wanting to see Victor get hurt, even though I don’t exactly know him. 

“You think I give some shit about some stupid Gym class basketball game!” Andrew raises his voice at Victor, pushing his face towards Victor, Victor pulls slightly back. so Victor can play basketball I’m guessing? Nice!

“Yeah, I think you do!” Victor answers him back, before taking a moment to see everyone glaring in their direction, people whispering to one another about the new kid and Andrew. “Just give everyone their money back!” 

“You got it!” Andrew smirks in Victors direction, oh no, what is he about to do, before walking off, Andrew shoves Victors Shoulder causing him to drop his pack lunch on the floor. Victor looks angry as he bends down and starts to gather his pack lunch on the floor. 

Leaving Lucy alone, I quickly hurry over to him, “You okay?” I ask him before I offer him a hand to help him up which Victor hesitatingly accepts. Once we had each other's hands, we stared at one another before some kid took us back to reality by shouting out. “Ow ow, get it new kid!” Seriously why can’t this school just grow the fuck up, I thought they learned more from Simon Spier! 

I glance over to Victor to see he has clearly been affected by what the stupid person yelled out in front of the entire school. “I’m fine!” Victor says sternly before walking off in the other direction.  
\---  
I walked into the winter carnival with Lucy and her friend Josh, I decided that I would go with them, even though it was a little awkward as the two were near enough all over each other all the time. 

I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket, I pull it out to see Derek had finally texted me back from this morning. 

Derek: 20:15  
Hey, sorry for not texting sooner, hope you have a lovely time at the winter carnival with Lucy I guess! See you soon?

I shook my head, I really hoped he would change his mind and come but what else would I expect coming from him?

“Derek texted you?” Lucy looks over to see me. 

“Yeah, he just said to have fun tonight with the two of us,” I tell her. 

“Ugh, I can’t stand that fucker!” Lucy says before I glare at her, she throws her hands up in the air. 

“Erm, shall we just have some fun guys!” Josh says snapping the two of us out of our conversation. “Let's go to the spinning t-cups!” Josh grabs Lucy dragging her towards the t-cups, I roll my eyes and follow behind them.  
\---  
We Stand by one of the stands after a few rides, I zone out when they bang about what ride they wanted to go on next, I start to miss Derek more, wishing he was with me so we could do all the coupley stuff together like everyone else, but he has never really been into the most stereotypically stuff that he says that was ‘romcom bullshit’. I See Victor walking past me, now wearing a mustard coloured coat over a grey jumper, it entreege me, I guess, he seems like a nice guy but I don’t know if I wanted to risk everything I have with Derek for a chance where the guy I kind of like might not even be gay himself. He nods his head to acknowledge him being there, I quickly nod back to him and turn my attention back to Lucy and Josh, but not for long as the thought of going on the ferris wheel with Victor filled my mind. But that thought was long gone once I saw who Victor was talking to. 

Victor was talking to Mia and Lake,Victor must have asked Mia a question I’m guessing, as the next thing they did was head on the next available seat on the ferris seat together. My gut feeling was right, he doesn’t see me that way, he’s straight after all.


	2. I have experience drinking coffee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Benjis shift at work takes a weird turn

I walk into Brasstown five minutes before my shift started to see Sarah behind the counter stressing, 

“Everything alright Sarah?” I asked her as I could see her panicking over something. 

“Ah Benji, thank goddess you are here!” I look around and spot the new employee's needed sign on the front of the counter, ah that’s why I think? Well that wasn't there two days ago when I was last in.

“Since when do we need new staff?” i point the sign out. 

“Since James quit last night, I’ve had to cover his shift this morning” she rushes out. Ah she must mean Jamie, she has never really been good with remembering names.

"Why did he quit?" I ask. 

"Stop questioning me and go clock in, I have a bunch of paperwork in the office I have to get done before I can go home!" I roll my eyes before heading out the back to hang up my jacket and quickly change my top to my grey Brasstown work top. 

I clock in quickly before heading back out the front of the cafe. 

"Oh, I'm putting you in charge of hiring the newbie", Sarah tells me. 

"Wait… what… are you sure?" I ask her unsure.

"Look, you're my assistant manager, you'll have to work with them as well, and I trust you to make the best decision for the role", Sarah goes on. "You might have a few come in this afternoon, a few people have shown their interest, so I expect the roll to be filled in no time!" I nod my head. Sarah heads to the office before anything else can be said.  
\---  
A couple hours passed with no major incidents happening. I only had a few people come in and applied for a job but other than that I've only really had a dozen customers come in for coffee. No one really stood out for me though for hiring as of yet.

When there's a brief few minutes, having already served the waiting customers and cleared and wiped the tables, I quickly go over to the sink to quickly clean up the dirty mugs that some customers had. When I get to the last cup I hear a males voice come from me.

“Excuse me?” I quickly turned around to see that the voice had come from Victor, standing from in front of the counter, looking angelic, if that was even possible. 

“Oh hey man! Whats up!” I abandon the sink to go serve him. He pauses, so to help out, I continue the conversation. “It’s Benji, from school?” customers have to be served first, before anything else can be done, especially one as cute as Victor is. 

“Oh, I just wanted an interview for the barista job, but it’s cool, I’ll” with quick reflexes, I basically snatched the application form from him, not wanting him to just walk off, I'm curious to find more out from the male in front of me, boyfriend or not, I have to know.

“Lucky for you, I’m the assistant manager!” I began to open the counter flap so he could come behind the counter with me. “Come on back, lets talk” Victor slowly walks through it, after putting down his bag beside the counter, 

I quickly glanced through the application that I had taken from him. “So victor, do you have any experience making coffee?”, I ask as everything in his application seems legit. 

“Erm, I have experience drinking coffee…” he tells me. 

I let out a little laugh at his response. I go over to stand next to the coffee machine and continue to talk to him. “Well, it isn’t rocket science you know, once you can pull a shot of espresso, you can basically make any drink, here watch!” 

I turn towards the coffee machine, grabbing the portafilter of the coffee machine to begin showing Victor what he would have to do. 

“First you take the portafilter and fill it with grounds” I wipe the portafilter with a cloth to clean the access coffee grounds that were used from the latte I had just made for a customer. 

I quickly looked at him to make sure he was understanding what I was saying, he nodded his head at me, I started to grind the grounds into the portafilter to make sure it was smooth.

“Then you pack it real tight!” I let him now make sure I made it super tight, not that I wanted to show off in front of him, I don’t want to test my luck. “See how tight that is?” I asked him a question, making sure he was paying attention to what I was doing. 

Victor nods his head, “Mmhmm”, quickly smiling at me. I attach the portafilter to the machine so the coffee would start to brew. 

I quickly run my hands through my hair pushing my hair back to get it out of my face. “And whilst that brews, we steam the milk,” I say whilst getting the milk jug and adding some milk to it, I quickly bite my lip. Placing it under the steam wand, “Now you try! Here!” I take his arm quickly leading his hand to the handle of the jug. Wow his arm feels so bloody good. 

Victor takes the jug in his hands, I show him the angle he had to hold it under with. I hesitate letting go of it so our hands could graze, he holds the jug under the steamer steaming the milk for a few seconds before I decide to speak up. 

“There you go, you’re a natural,” I look into his eyes, I swear he will be the death of me with those big beautiful brown eyes of his, he looks at me back, like he is staring into my soul, and honestly, I don’t mind that. 

I forget what we were doing whilst staring into his eyes, a smile appears on my mouth, the next thing we know is that the milk goes all over me, neither of us actually watching it, 

Victor panics, “I am so sorry!” 

“It’s fine,” it's mostly my fault anyway, I shouldn't have got distracted by staring into his eyes. I start to pat his chest down with a cloth I just picked up from the counter.

“You know what, this was a bad idea, sorry for wasting your time!” Victor says before rushing off out of the cafe. What has just happened? I stare at the direction of the door Victor had just rushed off through. A few seconds passes and I finish up cleaning the mess that had just been made before Sarah could see it. 

About fifteen minutes later, Sarah comes out of the office and announces to me that she was heading home having been there since 6.30am this morning. 

"See you tomorrow Sarah!" I said to her when she was on the way out. She suddenly stops. 

"Ah, beforehand, have any applications been brought back?" She asks. 

"A few, I was just going to go through them in a second to see if anyone could fit the role". I said to her, fully knowing that there was only one applicant that applied to my mind. 

"I trust you to pick the right person Benji, don't make me regret that!" Sarah says before going out of the door before I could say anything else.  
\---  
Closing time came around quickly, and before I knew it, I was locking the door to Brasstown just after the last customer had left the cafe. Now it was time for the rest of the closing down bits that I had yet to complete. 

I quickly finish wiping the rest of the tables down with a damp cloth before heading behind the counter to finish wiping the sides. As I wipe the sides, I see the stack of application forms placed in the corner, I quickly drop the cloth and pick up the application forms. 

I quickly took out Victor’s application from all the others, and looked through it, although Victor isn’t the strongest applicant that had applied, he was the only one who remained on my mind. I knew he would be great once he knew exactly what he had to do somehow. Also, I would have a decent reason in getting to know him a lot more. 

I quickly pull out my phone and take a note on Victor’s phone number he had placed on his form. After that, I take the rest of the applications and go file them away in the file cabinet in the office for safe keeping just in case they were helpful for future use, making sure I kept Victor’s application separate to the rest so Sarah could file that with the rest of the hires. 

I quickly went to the back to grab my stuff so I could head home myself, making sure I clocked out, I set the alarm and began my walk home. 

I decide to ring Victor on the way home, he picks up after a few rings. “Hello?” the voice on the phone says.  
“Victor, it’s Benji! Sorry it's late, I hope I’m not waking you up” I ask him, the last thing I needed was for Victor to be still at Mia’s party.

“I’m up! What's going on?”

“Look, I know todays barista lesson didn’t go perfectly, but since none of the rich ass kids at school needs jobs, you’re kinda my only applicant, so the position is yours,” I lie to him, i couldn’t exactly say that I really wanted to work by his side. 

“Erm,” he says over the phone quickly

“If you want it,” I say, not wanting to push my luck

There is a brief moment when neither of the two of us spoke, I was desperately waiting on his reply to the question I had just asked him. 

“Yeah, thanks.” yes! He accepted the job, 

“See you tomorrow, and everyday after school, until the end of time! We’re going to be spending a lot of time together!” I say smiling into my phone.

“Cool can’t wait!” he says before we hung up the phone.


	3. Spinning.... and rump shaking?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Benji and Victor works a closing shift together and Benji performs call me maybe at the Battle of the Bands

It's now been nearly a week since Victor started working at Brasstown, and not to gloat or anything but I was correct. He picked up everything almost immediately. Even Sarah was pleased and that's very hard to come by. To say, I did a very good job with the person I hired. 

My shift started an hour before Victor's today as he had basketball practice after school. But as it wasn't busy, I worked on the upcoming shift schedule that needed doing whilst Megan was behind the counter.

I made sure that for the majority of Victor’s shifts he was working alongside me. I say the majority of them as I didn’t want to look like I made the schedule around me working with him, so it didn’t look out of place for Sarah when she went over it just to make sure there had been no errors or when people weren’t in when they had booked the day off. 

I look over Saturday to see if anyone had requested that particular day off and luckily no one had apart from myself. I made sure I put Victor on the morning, daytime shift so he could come and support the event in the evening with his new friends if he chose too, but I secretly hoped that he would come support my band and I who were competing in the contest. 

A little while passed until I had finally completed the shifts, quickly getting up, I went and put the schedule on Sarah’s desk before heading back to let Megan go a few minutes early due to it not being very busy, I could cope on my own until Victor would get there in about 20 minutes time.   
\---  
Today’s shift after Victor had shown up went quicker than what I would have liked. I like spending time with him, he is a really nice person once you get to know him. 

Coming in from the outside with the black bin that I had just emptied into the rubbish out the back, I spot Victor drying the jugs that we had washed up. I came and placed the bin on the countertop next to him.

"Hey, good work today" I looked towards him "you caught on fast". I smile at him, before making my way towards the front door to lock it so no other customers could come in as we were now closed. 

"Thanks” He says before continuing on. “I had fun, except from this music, five hours of non stop easy listening is actually, not so easy to listen to”. 

“Ugh i know, if i hear one more gentle song about a girl forgiving her dad I would lose my mind” I agree with him, this music sucks, usually when I close up on my own I turn it off and play my own. 

“I know right, it's like people drink coffee to wake up”, he replies, which makes me think of an idea. I could get hold of his phone and see what sort of music he listened to, you can always tell who somebody was by their music taste majority of the time. 

“Yeah!, well Sarah’s not here, so if you have your phone, i can connect it to the speakers and play something”. 

“Erm, yeah, yeah sure”, Victor gets his phone out of his side pocket and gives it to me after unlocking it. I laughed slightly when I went through his most listened to song and saw what it was. 

“Baby shark is your most listened to song?” I smirk at him. 

“I play it for my little brother, and i may also find it predictably soothing”, Ah so he has a little brother as well as a sister then, he must be much younger than the other two. I laugh again smiling at him this time slightly shaking my head. I continue to go through his song before a song catches my eye. I click on it and it comes out of the speakers. I stupidly dance along to the song, encouraging Victor to do the same. 

“So call me maybe” I sing along to the music. I stop dancing when I notice he wasn’t exactly joining in.

“Okay you making fun of me right now! Call me maybe it was my jam when I was little, I made up this whole dance, it used to crack my mum up”, Victor says over the music to me. 

“Okay, lets see!” I encourage him. 

“See what?”

“Your dance, cmon!” I beg him.

“All I remember is that it involved a lot of spinning and… rump shaking”, he hesitates the last bits before I smile at him, an idea comes across my mind. 

“Oh, like, like this?” I start shaking my rump to the music. 

“No no no no no, like this, you’ve gotta put more rump into it” Victor begins to show me how a proper rump shake was done like... “You gotta go”.

“Oh”, I joined in with him, mimicking his actions.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,” he laughs. We danced together for a few minutes, making sure I occasionally bumped into him, oops? A text message came through on his phone breaking me from the fun we were having, it was from Mia, the reality of him being actually straight catched me up.

“Oh, your ferris wheel boo is texting you” I gave his phone back to him so he could answer her.  
.   
“Oh” he sounds a bit disappointed? Which I find strange. I make my way behind the counter to continue cleaning up behind it.

“What’s the deal with you two anyway?” I ask him when I notice Victor has finished texting and got back to wiping the tables down.

“I don’t know… she’s cool, erm, we’re going out tomorrow, to hang” Victor shakes his head, oh….

“Nice!” I took a breath before thinking about what I could say next, But before I could think correctly, it came out, “You should bring her here tomorrow, for the battle of the bands, and then cheer for my band, loudly, I’m a very insecure.” I smile at him, Benji. What are you doing? You have a boyfriend that will be present! 

“You’re in a band?” he grins.

“Yeah! Lead singer” I smile at him, “You and Mia can come hang backstage after the show, if you want to, and by backstage I mean the parking lot next door” victor lets out a slight laugh, I lean against the counter, waiting for his response. Silence filled the room, I awkwardly stood until he spoke. 

“Erm, we are doing something else tomorrow, sorry” we look at one another, me slightly disappointed that he wouldn’t be there but I could understand.

“Oh, maybe next time” I sound more down than I would like, I smile at him once again before getting back to cleaning down the cafe so we could go home.  
\----  
The day of the battle was here and the band and I decided that we would have one last rehearsal before tonight, so at exactly 10am, Derek arrived on the drive in his car to pick me up. I quickly greet my boyfriend with a kiss after sliding into the front seat next to him. 

“Morning Handsome!” 

“What a beautiful site to see this morning,” Derek says, making me blush. “Awww, you’re so cute!” he pokes the side of my cheek.

“I’m not cute!” I insisted on him before crossing my arms across my chest sulking. 

“Awww Benji, please cheer up on this fine Saturday morning!” He jokes before driving to the Jacks, our drummer, garage. 

As rehearsals go on, I can’t get Call me Maybe out of my head with the thought of dancing to it with Victor the other night. 

“Anyone got any other particular songs they can think of performing as an encore, you know, just in case?” Jack asks as we finish rehearsing the song that we were going to be performing tonight.

“Guys, what about doing a song that we never thought about doing before?” I suggest after no one says anything to his question. 

“What is it?” Derek comes up behind me and holds me around the waist. 

“I know this will sound weird, but what about Call me maybe?”

“That song by Carly Rae Jepson?” Michael, our Pianist asks. 

“Yeah…” 

“No fucking way we are playing a cheesey pop song!” Derek says quickly quite loudly. 

“Actually, if we could give it a spin on it, and make it a slower version of the song, I think it could really work?” I say, ignoring his comment. 

“It could work…” Michael says before starting to play the start of a slower version of the song on the piano to see how it would sound. Jack picks up on this and starts to quietly play the drums in time with the piano. I start playing along on my guitar causing Derek to frown. 

“C'mon guys, you can’t be serious!” Derek bursts out. 

“Let’s do it!” Jack says despite Derek's pleas not to do the song. I smile, secretly hoping that Victor changes his mind about taking Mia tonight.   
\---  
Nighttime came around quicker than I thought and soon enough, it was our time to play, we had luckily pulled the last slot of the night so we didn’t have very long to wait before the winner was announced after we had a standing applause from the audience. 

“Guys, I think we pretty much got this in the bag! Did you see how bad the other contestants were?” Michael says from behind me. We were waiting on the side of the stage waiting for the results to be announced. 

“Yeah, especially that DJ person, he completely sucked!” Derek says from beside me, he was holding my hand. I turn and smile at him. 

Before anyone could say anything else, Sarah had taken her place on the makeshift stage they had set up in order for the bands to play tonight in front of the large crowd. 

“And the winner is, not a big shocker as they were the only ones that were halfway decent, the sticky beaks, come on out here guys!” Sarah announces to the audience making them cheer in happiness. Yes we won! I get to play our song! I want to get it out of my head for the next time I see Victor, which was tomorrow’s closing shift.

I lead Derek, Michael and Jack on the stage. I took to the main microphone so the audience could hear me thank everyone. But before I could say something, I heard Lake yell “Wooo Benji! Take your shirt off!” from the audience causing me to blush. 

“Ahh thanks guys, this is a cover that we just started working on!” I announce before we start playing our version of call me maybe. 

Just before I start to sing the first verse of the song, I spot Victor standing in the audience with Mia and Felix by his side. I can’t believe he actually showed up! He must have not been here long as I didn’t see him when we had performed our actual song for the contest. 

As soon as I start singing, I watch Victor carefully to make it not so obvious to Derek, who was right beside me, staring at another guy. I noticed that his eyes widened when he realised that we were performing the song that we danced together just the other night. 

It wasn't long until we had finished playing the song. Not thinking about anything else, the first thing I wanted, no need, was to go to speak to Victor, to see how his night ended, and to let him know that the offer of him and Mia coming backstage was still on offer. 

Although before I could get anywhere near him, I spot Derek coming towards me from the corner of my eyes. Not wanting to upset my boyfriend, I divert my attention towards him. 

“Hey!” I say to him before kissing him. After a few seconds, I pulled away from him. 

“Everything alright Benj?” Derek asks me. 

“Yeah, everything is fine,” I say, not really looking at him, instead I made it my sole focus to try to find Victor, who had just disappeared on me. I spotted that he had made his way to the door and going through it with his friends, disappointed, I turned back around to Derek. 

“What's wrong Benji? I know you remember and clearly something isn’t right with you!” Derek says to me. 

“Nothing, I’m fine!” I tell him to pull him in for another kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed my version of the show written in Benji's POV! 
> 
> until next time
> 
> CrazeLou


	4. In Sync

“Should I be concerned?” Derek breaks me out of my trance. That is when I noticed that we had made it back to the driveway for my house. How long had I been zoned out for?

“What do you mean?” I chuckle. 

“You haven’t said anything the whole way home, that's not like you!” Derek leans closer to me and puts his hand on my leg. 

“I’m just tired, that's all, it's been a few busy days with work and preparing for battle of the bands.” I let him know, not wanting to let him know what has actually been on my mind as I know he wouldn’t like it. “Good thing apart from work tomorrow night, I don’t have to do anything tomorrow”. 

“Call me later yeah?” Derek says to me before kissing me. 

“Yeah, off course”, I smile at him before getting out of the car, I grin at him, although our relationship isn’t the best, by far, I don’t want to lose him. I walk towards the front door before turning around to see Derek pulling out of the driveway. I wave at him quickly before heading inside. 

“Benji that you?” I hear my mum yell from the lounge.

“Yeah it is!” I say when I pop my head around the corner to greet her. I noticed that she was watching the film Me Before You with Dad. 

“How was it?” Mum asks, sparking up a conversation. 

“We won”, I let them know. 

“Good on you son!” Dad finally acknowledged my presence in the room quickly before turning his attention back to the screen. 

“I’m tired so I’m going to go get ready for bed”, I say to them. 

“Night Hunny!” Mum says and I walk out of the room heading to my bedroom. My bedroom was average size I guess, not big but not small I guess, big enough to fit a double bed in and a few other bits. My favourite part is my closet with all my favourite band t-shirts in. 

I grab some pajamas and quickly get changed before I lay on top of my bed staring at the ceiling. All the feelings that I have towards Victor is really confusing me. I love Derek... well I think I love him, it has been a rough few years with my discovering who I really am, I’m honestly scared that I would discover something more for what I have now.   
I decide that I need to talk to my best friend Lucy, she usually has the right thing to say for everything, she was the first one I told when I figured out I was gay, well apart from Derek. 

Benji: 2345  
Hey Luce! You awake?

I wait a few minutes before I get a text back from her. 

Lucy: 2348  
What’s up?

I quickly dial her number, after a few rings, she answers the phone. 

“Hey Benji! Why the late phone call?” I sigh on the phone. “That bad is it? What has he done this time!” 

“It wasn’t Derek…” 

“Wait… What!” Lucy quickly says,

“I don’t know what to do Luce,” I say to her. 

“First you need to tell me what’s actually happened”. Lucy tells me, “how about you first tell me how tonight went?” She suggests a way to start after I don’t say anything. 

“It went well, we actually won, but we did a song, with a lot of persuasion to the band so I could get someone out of my head… but it just…” 

“made you think about them the more?” 

“Yeah…. I know I shouldn’t, I’ve got Derek, plus I’m pretty sure that they are straight so it's not like it’s ever going to happen!” 

“Why not try to be just friends with this person then?” Lucy tells me. “And whatever happens, happens”. 

“I guess you’re right,” I tell her. 

“When am I ever wrong?” Although I can’t see her, I could sense that she had a smirk on her face. 

We continued talking for a while before Lucy told me that she had to go, so after a quick goodbye, we hung up the phone. I noticed that it had been well over an hour since I got in so I went straight to sleep.   
\---  
A couple weeks went on after the phone call with Lucy and things had become more easier than before. I accepted the fact of Victor being with Mia, my relationship with Derek has been great. 

Workwise, Victor and I couldn’t be more in sync with each other if it was even possible. Sarah had complimented me with hiring such a nice, well rounded team worker. Everyone liked him, even the more challenging clientele. 

I think back to the other day when we worked a closing shift together. We had quite a big crod of customers come in, so we worked together to get everyone served promptly.   
\---  
I walk into Brasstown just before my shift, I spot Victor just in the doorway leading to the back. He quickly gives me a wave before heading over to help Megan with a difficult customer that had complained. 

I quickly went out the back and took off my jacket and grabbed my apron, putting it on, I headed out the front to see what the problem was. I would have dealt with it before coming out the back but store policy states otherwise. 

After dealing with the ‘Karen’, I sent Megan on her way as her shift finished. Victor and I work side my side, 

Standing by the coffee machine, Victor and I were working on separate orders.   
"hey benji, can you open the", I open the fridge without hearing the full sentence, I know what he was after "and hand me the" I hand him the milk, you can’t make a latte without it. I slid the milk jug over to him as he started to ask for it. We quickly clap and smile at each other before getting back to making our drinks.

Out of the blue, my phone rings, I notice that it was Derek so I quickly answer it. "hey handsome, whats up?", Iwalks away to the other side of the counter from victor, dealing with the call. A few minutes later, I finished the phone call and turned back to Victor, who had finished making the drink he was. 

“Sorry about that, I’ve been waiting to hear about an appointment that he had today so he called me just to let me know everything was good!” I tell him, he nods understanding. I smile at him before getting back to work.


	5. Just in tips and free nuts

Victor and I were halfway through our shift at Brasstown, as it wasn’t that busy, I let Victor go on his break as Mia, Lake and Felix were here. I look over and see that Victor and Mia were very close, looking adorably at each other. 

“Can I get another triple espresso?” some girl at a random question asked me. 

“Yeah sure”, I say before going to head towards the counter to make her drink. But before I go behind the counter, I hear Lake call me over. 

"Hey Benji!" 

"Hey!" I quickly walked over to them, to see what she wanted.

"Victors having a birthday party on saturday, and his ratio of hot people to old people is totally tragic, wanna come?" Weird, why wasn’t Victor inviting me himself? Why is this coming from Lake? Why do I get the feeling that he doesn’t particularly want me there? I look at him to see what the expression on his face was like. 

"I mean, only if you want to, there's no pressure" Victor quickly adds. Why do I have a feeling that this invite isn’t really coming from Victor. But he didn’t hesitate to disinvite me, encouraging my answer to be yes. 

"Sure, I'm in, I'll bring derek, I mean if that's cool", the Derek part slipped out of my mouth without me really thinking about it. Saturday should be about Victor and knowing Derek if he ended up going, he would make it all about him in some way. Victor had met Derek a few times when he came in to see me at work, but they haven’t exactly had an actual conversation outside of work. 

"Yeah! I love Derek”, Victor says, faking a smile. Doesn’t he like Derek? That was definitely sarcasm coming from him, although they haven’t known each other for very long, I could tell that it kind of bothered Victor. I made a self note to ask Victor more about it later on when we were alone. 

"Great, we'll be there!", I tell them before heading back to behind the counter to make the ladies drink. Quickly delivering the triple espresso to the table, I head back to the counter to serve the people who are waiting. 

I noticed on the way back to the table, Victor had got back up and was heading towards the counter top to serve them. “Hey Vic, why don’t you make sure the tables are clean and I’ll serve these people?” I say, he nods his head and starts to wipe the unoccupied tables down with a damp cloth whilst I greet the customer.   
\---  
A few hours later, just before closing time, I finally had the chance to speak to Victor by myself in an empty cafe. Mia, Lake and Felix left around an hour ago after chilling on their table for a while. 

“Hey Vic, do you really want me there on saturday or were you just agreeing with Lake as she invited me…” I asked him as he started to clean the coffee machine down. 

“I do want you there Benji, I was actually going to invite you when they went but Lake kind of got to it before me”, Victor smiles over to me. 

“Ok, only if you are sure!” I laugh at him.   
\----  
I get home that night, trying to decide on what I should get Victor for his birthday, I didn’t particularly want to spend lots of money on him, as I have to put my wages from brasstown in paying back my parents for their destroyed car. 

Giving up for a second, I quickly rang Derek’s number, he picked up after I called him a second time, the first one going through to his voicemail. 

“Hey Benj, what is up?” I hear Derek say yawning, I should have texted him instead, it was strange for him not to be awake at this time, he’s usually out and about. “You usually don’t call me this late”.

“Sorry, am I waking you up?” I say to him concerned. 

“No, I’m just really tired for some reason”, I could sense the weirdness from his voice. There's some shuffling in the background as well. strange? What is he doing? 

“So, my friend Victor has invited us to his birthday this saturday if you want to go…” I slowly say to him, slightly scared for what the outcome to be. Derek and I usually do what he wants to do, especially on a saturday night, we usually goes to a gig. I know this is asking a lot from him, I really hope he says yes. 

“But Ty has already invited us to a gig of his that I’ve already said to Benji…” Derek says to him, I suddenly hear a slight male voice in the background of the phone call. I was sure that he was alone, 

“Who's that Derek?” I ask him,quickly sitting up, the phone line goes quiet for a second. Before I heard him go. 

“You know what, maybe we could go to your friends instead just this once…” Derek says. “Look Benji, I’ve gotta go, I’ll call you tomorrow okay!” He says before hanging up the phone before I could say anything else to him.   
I lay on my bed, an idea quickly popping into my mind for Victor’s present. I smile, it’s perfect! I get out my sketch pad and pencils and start to work on his present. I hope he’s going to like it.

\---  
I’m about to knock on the Salazar’s door before it suddenly opened. Lake and Felix on the other side, looking like they’re going to be going somewhere.

“Of course I have to leave when the one sexy person shows up”. Lake says giggling before adding, “no offense Victor!” On the way out of the door, Felix follows her like a lost puppy. I wonder where they are having to go?

When Felix moved out of the way I spotted the birthday boy standing in some sort of doorway leading into a different room looking as gorgeous as ever. His shirt making his eyes pop out even more, if it was possible, it had me in a trance. 

“Hey Benji! You made it” he smiles and walks towards me with that big goofy smile of his, I step into his apartment towards him, standing opposite him, it was just him and I with Derek parking the car after he was complaining that there were no parking spots close to the entrance. 

“Heyyy” I handed him the wrapped present I had put the drawing of him in. “little something for the birthday boy!” he takes the present, his smile growing bigger if it could. 

“You didn’t have to get me a gift!” I smile at him. Who arrives at a birthday party empty handed? Well Derek has but that could never be me. I shrug my shoulders at him.   
“I had to park in front of a hydrate,” Derek moans when he steps into the apartment, He looks directly at me before looking at Victor. “So no one set anything on fire!” He jokes causing Victor to chuckle. 

“Hey man, thanks for coming!” Victor smiling at Derek nervously, why is he so nervous all of the sudden? 

“Yeah, anything this guy wants!” Derek turns to look at me all lovely , placing his hand on my shoulder, but I know it was aimed at me rather than Victor, if Derek had his way, he wouldn’t be here right now. In fact, we would be off doing something that he wanted to do, like go to a music show or something like that, it all we end up doing most of the time. 

“Victor! Who are your friends?” An old, baldish guy with a moustache walks up from behind. Jesus, that must be Victor’s grandpa. Victor directs his attention towards him. 

“Tito, this is Benji,” he points towards me, “my co-worker, and Derek, his erm, bandmate”, what? I stare blankly at Victor, deeply in shock. Did he not feel comfortable with saying that Derek was my boyfriend? Honestly, why didn’t he warn me about this beforehand? Is he that embarrassed to have us in his house in front of his grandparents? 

His grandpa says something that I don’t really understand in Spanish to him which he replies to back in Spanish. His grandpa nods his head before walking back the direction he had come from. As soon as I knew that he was out of earshot of us, I said something to Victor. 

“Seriously, his bandmate?” I give Victor a look of disappointment. He is clearly disturbed as he turns his head down in shame. 

“Well, you guys are in a band together…” Victor looked back up, faking a smile, I knew at this point that there was something on his mind, why was he trying to hide that Derek and I were together unless…. Oh shit!

“Well, I prefer the term boyfriend”, Derek said, clearly this has pissed him off even more than it did me. 

“No, no, off course, it’s just,” Victor pauses. I stare at him, what is going on? “My family is going through a hard time right now, I just really need today to go well, if my Grandfather makes a scene, it will lead to a fight between my parents, and I just….” I continue looking at him making sure I’m listening. “I’m just not sure how much more fighting we can take”, I looked sadly at him, I knew he had some troubles at home when we had talked in Brasstown together but I didn’t think it was that bad. But I don’t see why we had to hide, surely it wouldn’t be any of their businesses that I get up to with Derek. 

“Whatever, just forget about it”, I say looking at him, only slightly less disappointed.Derek and I walk towards a room that looks like it’s the kitchen. The kitchen is attached to the living room, so although we weren’t exactly where everybody else was, we could still interact with all the other people there if we wanted to.   
\------

I sat on the bar stall next to Derek while Senor Salazar had come up to us and started having a conversation. I made sure, although I didn’t particularly feel comfortable with this, I didn’t make it any worse for Victor. We had talked about how Victor and I were working together before moving on about our band. “You get paid?” Senor Salazar asks us. 

“Just in tips and free bar nuts…” I replied, laughing awkwardly with him. He might be Victor’s Grandfather but I really can’t stand this man. I would have said something by now by the way he is speaking to us but I don’t want to give Victor even more hassle than he needs. 

“I bet you guys clear it up with the ladies?” He now says, I then notice that Victor had come into the room, staring awkwardly at his grandpa, not wanting to really have this conversation. 

“Errr, no not really!, actually we are//” I look at Derek, I can see where this conversation is heading, I have to stop it before it gets too far for Victor's sake.

“Too busy… between music and school, who has the time to date”. I can tell I pissed Derek off even more for not saying that he is my boyfriend, but he’s not the one who is important right now, Victor and his fucking reputation in his family is. It’s not like we are going to ever have to see this man again after today anyway as I’m going to make sure I stay well clear of here again. 

“I’m going to get my drink”, Derek says getting up, clearly not wanting to be part of this conversation any more. I feel bad for him, I’m going to have some major making up to him to do after this, after all, this is all my fault, if I didn’t insist on him coming, we wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place. 

Much to Derek’s want, Senor Salazar puts his arm around Derek’s shoulder and walks with him towards his drink., talking about Frank Sinatra. I should really go and bail him out of that conversation alone with him, Although I do trust him not to say anything to him, it’s not fair on Derek.

“You didn’t have to do that”, Victor says, I just stare blankly at him, without saying anything, I get up and follow Derek and Senor Salazar. Victor put us in a really difficult situation, one that I don’t want to be in again. I honestly didn’t realise how homophobic the rest of his family would be. 

I eventually was able to pull Derek away from Senor Salazar and alone briefly down by the front door, as I knew that he needed me to talk to him. All we needed to do was stay for a little longer than we could get out of here and not have to look back. I know Derek would hold this to Victor though but I don’t honestly feel like this is a hundred percent his fault. I should have really made sure about what his family was like before bringing Derek here.

“Look Derek, I know this is shit, but today isn’t about us, It’s about Victor!.... C’mon it’s his birthday!” I remind him.   
“I don’t care! Benji I’m not going to pretend I’m straight for some homophobic old man!” Derek aggressively whispers to me, I can’t blame him but I really didn’t feel like upsetting Victor. 

“Can you not right now!” I say back pushing him even more down the corridor so no one could hear us. 

“It just made me feel uncomfortable…” Derek calmly says to me, I totally understand that, knowing how hard it has been for the both of us. Feeling that we had been pushed back into a closet isn’t a nice feeling. 

“I know… I’m sorry, ok?” I respond to him staring up at him. Sometimes I wished I wasn’t that short. 

“Okay!” Derek smiles at me, we briefly kiss. 

“I don’t want to fight anymore ok?” Derek whispers to me, 

“Same”. 

We continued to stare at one another and talk before having to head back to the party, I held onto his hand. I don’t want to hurt him but I need to do this for Victor. Out of nowhere, I hear Victor start to shout “No!” . What the fuck is happening. Derek and I turned around to see what was going on, although I already had a sneaky feeling on what it was about. 

“I’m not going to be who they are if that bothers you!” I quickly let go of Derek’s hand. I can’t believe he is sticking up for us in front of his family, the thing that he clearly cares the most about in the world! “That's your problem, not theirs and not mine!” We walk closer to what is happening. Senor Salazar looks away from Victor, clearly disappointed in what his grandson is saying to him. 

“This is how you teach your son to speak to his Abuelo?” His grandmother, who I noticed hasn't really said anything at all today to us, says to Victor’s mum. I zone out, proud of Victor to finally stick up for us. That's the Victor I know, and grew to adore!   
\---  
Around an hour after, we all had played with Victor’s adorable little brother Adrian with his frozen wand. I knew it was time to go as Derek would want to make sure he could watch his favourite tv show when it was live and not have to watch the rerun due to spoilers. Of all things my boyfriend had to be obsessed with was desperate house wives for crying out loud!

I briefly leave Derek to speak to Victor. 

“We're going to head out,” I announced, causing Victor to stand up from his family. “Derek turns into a pumpkin if he’s not watching reality tv by ten”, I tell him causing him to chuckle.   
“I’m sorry Benji”, Victor apologises for his family's behaviour. I get the feeling that if he could choose who his family could be he wouldn’t exactly choose them. 

“Coming out for me was really hard Victor! It’s still hard for me to be who I am”, sometimes I wish being gay was as easy as it was for straight people, but the world clearly still had a lot of problems to deal with.

“I know, and for the record I think who you are is pretty great”, Victor says, making me smile. Although I could sense that he was holding something back. I let it go for now, instead, I say. 

“I hope you like my present!” 

“Hey everybody! Cake time!” we hear his mum shouting from the kitchen. Oh cool, I kind of want to wait a few more minutes and see him blow out his candles. I nod and slightly wink Victor, in a total non flirtatious way, in that direction so he begins to walk that way, I just stand in the doorway watching his family as well as Mia, Felix and Lake sing him happy birthday. I even joined in. 

The next thing I knew is that Derek was tapping me on my shoulder. He quickly whispers “we going?” to me so I quickly tell him in a second. Victor blows out his candles before staring around the room, taking more time to look at me and then at Mia. not wanting to let Derek wait anymore, we left Victor’s apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After this chapter, this story is going slightly different to how the show did. I was originally planning on ending with 10 parts but I've decided that I wanted to put a little spin on it, so i have no idea now how many chapters the book will now have.   
> also, this chapter is the longest one I've written in this book.
> 
> see you next time!  
> Crazelou


	6. Light some candles, put some italian accordion music

As the cafe is not busy, I work on perfecting my latte art, as I might be a pro when it comes to paper, but when it comes to putting those little foam pictures of some whiskers or something, I suck. But practice makes perfection, they say, so I won’t stop until I have perfected the art. 

“Latte art…” I say when I sense Victor looking over in my direction. I wonder if he would get what I am trying to draw, so I decide to call him over further to take a look.. “Remind you of anyone?” 

Victor leans incredibly close to me, oh boy, I look up at him, trying not to show how he is affecting me. “Steve Harvey?” Victor says, am I really that bad that he can’t tell who I made? 

I shake my head, disappointed with myself. “It’s Derek…” I look directly in his direction, Victor is still leaning very close to me. 

“Oooh... yeah, I see it now!” Victor says slapping my back gently, walking over to the other side of the counter. 

My mind drifts off to what I wanted to do with Derek for our one year anniversary. Maybe Victor would have some ideas on what to do, he’s usually so good at these sort of things with Mia. “Fridays our one year anniversary, we’re supposed to go see his friend’s band downtown but I want to do something romantic for him”. 

“Where’d you go for your first date?” Victor asks.

“We got spaghetti and meatballs at this corny Italian place, the food was good but it ended up getting shut down by the health department, god I love meatballs, so ugly, so delicious”. I explain to him, so even going to the place where we had our first date is out of the picture. That was a good night, I can remember it as if it was yesterday. Victor adorably chuckles at me. 

“Okay, maybe this is a little cheesy but you could recreate your first date? You can have your own Italian restaurant but just you and Derek?” I love a good cheesy move, it will be humourish in some ways. An idea pops up in my head. 

“I could do it here after we close. Light some candles, put some italian accordion music, yeah” that’s if Sarah will give me the thumbs up for doing it, I make a mental note to ask her later after I get off shift “well Victor, who knew you were such a romantic,” I tease him with the last part, I already knew that he had romanced Mia beforehand, he is so good at this sort of thing. “Mia is a lucky lady!” 

“Yeah she’s the luckiest”, Victor says, pulling a familiar face that I have learned of over the few weeks we had been working together. He starts to walk over to the coffee machine again but I am not going to let it go just yet. I need to find out why. 

“Okay, why did you just do your uncomfortable scrunch face?” I ask him to turn around to look at him. Don’t blame me, I’m just a curious guy. 

“Okay, I’m hanging out with Mia on friday” he starts to explain to me but I cut him off. 

“You don’t sound excited,” 

“I think Mia wants to take things to the next level, and I’m….you know” He starts to whisper. Ah I get it. 

“Oh, you’re a virgin”, way to point out the obvious Benji! No wonder why the guy is so nervous. He nods confirming my suspicion. “That’s fine, you’ve just gotta relax! If I can have sex with girls, anybody can!” I tell him quietly, hoping that what I was saying would help him out. 

“Wait… but your” Victor says, dragging out the your. 

“Gay…” I say it for him, I haven’t exactly heard that word coming out of his mouth before, I saw the way his family was so I don’t want to push it. I pulled a funny face to him to lighten up the mood as I could sense he was uneased, “I know… this was back when I was still figuring things out, turns out human sexuality is less of a straight line and more of a cirque du soleil show, long confusing and full of sexy clowns!” He chuckles. I start to walk out the back, he gently slaps me on the back as I walk past him. 

“Hey Benji!” Victor grabs my attention as I get nearer to the back, I turn around to see what he wanted. “Thanks”, he smiles at me, “means a lot.” I smile at him, generally pleased that I could help. 

Friday night came around too quickly for my liking, I’m somewhat nervous for what is going to happen. I quickly make our food and get the place looking good. 

I quickly sent a text to victor, wishing him luck for tonight with Mia and showing him the food I had just made. 

At about 7pm, I received a text from Derek to let me know he was outside. I take a deep breath before going outside to greet him. 

“What’s going on? Why are we meeting here?” Derek questions me straight away. 

“I want to show you something, close your eyes!” I nod to him,

“Oookay” he says uncertainly. But as I ask him to, he closes his eyes, putting a hand in front of his face for extra coverage. I take his hand that’s not covering his face and lead him inside of the cafe where the surprise is waiting. 

“Ok, but whatever it is, make it quick as I don’t want to be late for the show!” he says as he lets me guide him through the door. 

“Shhh, just stop talking okay” I say playfully, smiling at him even though he can’t see. I guide him so he’s inside before letting go of his hand so he would stay still so I could get into position. “Alright keep your eyes closed!” 

“Okay… giving me major serial killer vibes!” Derek jokes. He surely knows that I wouldn’t put him in harm's way. 

I stand by the table, taking a deep breath, I tell him to uncover his eyes. As he opens his eyes, confusion is spread all around his face. “Welcome to trattoria di Benji!” Derek is completely speechless. Have I done wrong? 

“Whoa…” is the only thing that comes out of his mouth. Doesn’t he like it? Am I missing something here? He eventually gives me a small smile. “Benji, this is…” 

“A little overkill?” I ask him, hoping he would answer me honestly.

“No, not at all… but why?” He asks me slowly. 

“I just thought I would do something a bit different for a change… is that alright?” I say timidly. Why am I feeling like he doesn’t at all like this? I wonder how Victor’s night is going, is it the same as mine as I clearly have read all the signs wrong. 

He looks around carefully. “Are those spaghetti and meatballs? Like on our first date?” he smiles at me. 

“Yeah… there was one of the easiest things that I could do in such a short amount of time…” I backed down. 

“Well, we can’t let your food go to waste… let's eat!” He says before walking to a chair on the set up table and sits down. 

We eat in silence for a while before either of us speaks. “So? Do you like it?” I asked him after a while, just to make sure everything was good with his food. 

“It’s great!” He sounds a little weird. “But shouldn’t we head to the show soon?” okay, what is up with him and this stupid show! I know he missed the last one due to being with me at Victor’s birthday and we all know how that turned out. “The opener are these two blind sisters who do bluegrass covers of TLC songs! I mean, it’s supposed to be awesome.” 

“Oh yeah? Sounds really cool and all, but I thought maybe we could skip the show tonight…” I finally asked him before carrying on before he could say something. “You know, since it’s our first anniversary and everything?” 

“Anniversary?” Derek laughs at me. Before he stops, “what are we straight people now?” he pipes up. What wait… what does anniversaries have to do with being straight? Everything has an anniversary!

“Oh, sorry!” I apologise to him. He has really let me down tonight. 

“I didn’t mean, like…. I just don’t really know if I believe in all that stuff”, he says, but I can’t help but wonder why this hasn’t come up in conversation beforehand. We’ve been together for an entire year and this has never come up at all before! 

“What stuff? Anniversaries?” I am generally curious now to see what he is going to say next. 

“Stuff that society tells us to want just ‘cause straight people do!” he says calmly at me like it doesn’t exactly matter to him. “Like, one of the best things about being gay is that we don’t have to conform to that hetero-normative, rom-com bullshit that is dreamt up by corporations to help sell greeting cards to morons!” ouch that hurt, I exhale. 

“Well… guess I’m one of those morons”. I look down in shame. Before pulling out an envelope that I had in my pocket. 

“Hey, I didn’t mean.” Whatever, I don't care anymore, it’s always about him isn’t it, never about what I want, he’s only come to places where I want when I point out the bullshit to him, but it always ended up coming back and biting me in the arse. “I’m sorry… I…. I’m a dick,” yeah nah shit! “And these meatballs are really great!” he tells me, trying to change the conversation. 

“Yeah?” I ask him a little down. 

“Yeah!” we go back to silence for a few minutes, Derek phones vibrate which I can hear as he’s left it beside him, what surprises me is that he ignores it. “Hey, I’m just going to go to the toilet quickly”, he says before quickly getting up, heading over to the restroom, leaving his phone on the table. 

A few seconds go by, waiting for him to come back, I hear his phone vibrate on the table. He usually doesn’t mind if I check who's messaging him so I grab his phone to see a few texts from his friend Ty. I feel my cheeks heat up as I read what Ty had sent to him. I can’t believe this! After all I have done to make sure I didn’t hurt him.

“Benji what are you doing?” I completely ignore what he asks me, instead I decide to read the texts out loud to him. 

“Hey Babe! When are you going to get here? I miss you…. Oh and when are you going to dump that high schooler and come hang out with us!” I get up furiously looking at him. 

“Benji…” he starts to talk but I immediately cut him off. 

“How long Derek? How fucking long!” I scream at him. I’ve had enough, he has always made me out to be the bad guy but in fact that it has always been him! 

“I can explain!” Derek starts to come over to me. 

“You know what… no, get out Derek, I don’t wanna know!” I say to him. 

“Benji Please!” 

“Just go..” I tell him before walking away from him out the back. 

I sink to the ground when I get out of sight of him. I put my head in my hands on top of my knees just thinking. A few minutes later I hear the door open and shut, he’s finally gone. I didn’t expect that to happen tonight.  
\---  
I sit for around 10 minutes before getting up and going out the front to start cleaning up the mess that was created for tonight. 

I got the cleaning up done quickly, but as I didn’t want to head straight home, knowing my parents would have questions for me, I worked on my latte art. I look in the direction of the door thinking it would be Derek, but I’m pleasantly pleased to see that it was Victor instead. 

“What are you doing here?” I smile at him, putting up a front for him. 

“I could ask you the same thing”, He says before carrying on, “How did Trattoria Di Benji go?” he asks me, I gulp, not wanting to tell him the truth for some reason. So instead I told him it was fine. 

“So, how was your big date?” I smile towards him, curious to see if they ended up doing it. 

“Not much to tell…” he replies. I don’t know why but that made me feel… butterflies… no Benji I can’t go there, he’s straight! “Working on your latte art?” he asks after a while of us not saying anything to each other. 

“Yep” I replied. “I think I might actually be getting better”. 

“Really?” 

I just mumble my reply. “You wanna try?”

“Yeah!” he says before coming up to me, we worked on how to do latte art for a long time, but before long, Victor has to go so he can make sure he gets home by his curfew. 

“You know what, let me just lock up here, I can walk back with you if thats okay? I live that way anyway…” he smiles. 

“Sure.”


	7. road trip part one: I would have not pegged you as a Dolly Parton Stan!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part one of Venji's Williacoochee trip, where they are driving there and Benji finally tells Victor about his break up.

I am woken up the following day to my Dad barging into my bedroom angrily. “Why is your phone turned off young man! I was rudely woken up by your boss phoning the house phone!” he comes over and pulls the sheets off me, to see me just in my checkered pajama bottoms. I know, my parents are kind of old fashioned and still have a landline in their home. I find It’s weird.

“Wait… what?” I say still a bit dazed due to just waking up. 

“Just ring your boss will you!” He says before storming off out of the room in a huff. 

I reach over to my bedside table to find my phone. I grab it, turning it back on. I turned it on last night when I got back home after finding Derek non stop trying to call me. He couldn’t get the hint when I didn’t pick up the first time and just continued to blow my phone up. 

As soon as it loads up, I notice there are several missed calls from Sarah upon the hundreds from Derek. I tap on Sarah’s contact and quickly ring her. She picks up after the first ring. She starts to ramble on about the coffee machine not correctly working and how I needed to go in early to see if I could fix it otherwise we would have to travel all the way to the repair guy in Willacoochee. I agreed to stop her from sulking over the phone and told her I would be there as quick as I can as I still needed to get dressed as I had just woken up due to my shift not starting till 1pm that day. 

Making sure I had a clean set of clothes just in case I happen to get coffee shit on my clothes from trying to repair it, I set out of the house after letting my parents know what was happening, despite my Dad’s anger for being woken up on his only day off. 

I basically ran to the store, luckily due to it being before 7am, he would be sleeping. I walk into the cafe to see Sarah stressing out trying to serve customers without a working espresso machine. I quickly duck under the counter to put my bag out the back out of the way, nodding at Sarah as I go past her. 

I grab the tools that I would need to have a look at the machine and go out the front. I started to look at the espresso machine thoroughly trying to see what was wrong with it so I didn’t have to endure another four hour road trip with Sarah as I could remember last time that had happened. 

No luck unfortunately, causing Sarah to freak out even more and phone the repair shop to see if we had to bring it in, oh joy! Just before half 7, the front door chimes. 

“Victor thank god you're here! Something terrible has happened!” Sarah says immediately as he walks through the door, I stand up, off course Sarah is going to be dramatic over this situation. 

“The espresso machine is busted, Sarah’s just being dramatic”. 

“I’m not being dramatic Benji! Is that what you think of me? That I’m dramatic!” she rambles. I look over to him with a I know expression on my face, which he raises his eyebrows to let me know he was on the same page without having to say it outloud.. “Victor you stay here and man the store, Benji, you and I are driving to the repair guy in Willacoochee!” I really don’t want to end up going with Sarah, quickly another idea popped up in my mind, so I quickly asked her. 

“What if Victor and I went?” I ask, touching Victor's arm carefully to stop him from walking off. 

“Okay! Fine, but don’t come back without that machine looking new and ready to brew, here, take my car!” she hands me her car keys that were in her back pocket, shit I can’t drive, but luckily Victor can so I don’t have to put up with Sarah's many many pit stops. 

Victor sighs, isn’t he happy to come with me? Have I made a terrible mistake? “Err, how far is Willacoochee as I have a thing at Mia’s tonight that I can’t miss?” He asks.

“Ah, it’s like a couple hours, but if we leave now, get there by ten, get this thing fixed by lunch, we can have you back four?” I say, please, please, please agree, I really can’t cope with another trip with Sarah. He shakes his head thinking. 

“That's cutting it close”, Victor concernly says. 

“Please Victor, I can’t do another road trip with Sarah, last time, she made us stop at the Ann Taylor outlet. Two hours of watching her try on irregular turtlenecks. She brought them all Victor…. All of them!” and that wasn’t the worst time, she makes us stop every single time at a new place, she must think I love shopping or something but I absolutely hate clothes shopping. 

“Okay, fine!, I’ll go, I’ll let Mia know”, a sense of relief comes over me, not having to go with Sarah is so good, and going with Victor of all people is such a bonus. 

“Great!” I say trying not to sound so eager in spending time alone with him in a car. I toss him the car keys, making them jangle a bit. “You're driving, not licenced, I keep failing the test!” I lie to him, not wanting him to know the truth about what happened just yet, only very few people know the truth about my accident. The problem isn’t with the fact that I don’t trust Victor, the problem holds upon him judging me like everyone else has in the past. He chuckles as I walk out the back to grab my t-shirt as I only had a white tank top on. 

After he had finished a couple phone calls, one to Mia and the other one to his parents, Victor and I picked up the coffee machine and walked it out carefully to the car to place it on the back seats as it wouldn’t fit in the boot. 

After quickly letting Sarah we were heading off, Victor and I hit the road. I felt excited to be road tripping again, this time with Victor. 

“God, I love road trips!” I say to Victor, looking out of the windows as we drive up the highway towards Willacoochee. “My dad and I used to road trip to Dollywood, like, twice a year”. I smile thinking of the past. Dad and I used to really get on so well before he knew the truth about me. 

“Really!” Victor says ethustically. 

“Yeah!” 

Victor laughs out loud, “I would have never pegged you to be a Dolly Parton stan!” 

“What!” I stare at him intently. “Rude! Dolly is timeless, yeah, she’s one of the few things that gay sons and straight dads actually agree on!” I let him know. Why am I so comfortable in speaking with Victor about this sort of stuff? 

“Are you guys still close or…?” he can’t seem to finish that sentence for a reason, weird? Thankfully I know what he was trying to say straight away. 

“You mean since I came out?” I ask him, even though I didn’t particularly have to. He doesn’t say a word, he seems nervous all of a sudden. “Oh, we’re not estranged or anything,” I pause. “But it’s not the same as before”. 

“Yeah…” he seems to be thinking about what he would say. “That’s really shitty”. 

“Yeah,” sometimes I missed being close to Dad, but my life is so much better now that I’m not having to hide my true self from the world. “Yeah it is”, I look down at my hands, fidgeting with my fingers as I don't know what else to say. I look over to Victor after a minute to catch him looking at me rather at the road. 

Suddenly the music stopped playing from my phone and my ringtone came across the speakers. I look at it to see it was Derek ringing, what is he doing up at this time? That is so strange, but why can’t he just leave me alone. I don’t want to answer him, especially now that Victor was in the car and I haven’t exactly told him that I broke it off with him last night, so I pressed the hang up button on my phone.

I turn to Victor to see he is looking at me weirdly. “What! I’m not going to force you to road trip with me and talk to… him the whole time!” I say, not knowing what I would call him in front of Victor. 

A few minutes of silence went by, with Derek ringing a few more times before I suddenly answered, just to tell him to fuck off and leave me alone, hanging up straight away so he couldn’t say anything. 

“Okay… what was that?” Victor says as he notices. 

“What was what?” I smiled at him like nothing had happened. 

“Benji, if there is something going on with the two of you, you know you can always speak to me right?” he tells me. 

“I don’t want to trouble you with any of my problems Vic, you have enough of your own,” I tell him quietly. 

“Benji, it wouldn’t be any trouble, you know, we’re friends and I will always be here for you, day or night!” Victor tells me, focusing on the road. “So, tell me what’s going on? I might be able to help”. 

I take a deep breath, he would find out sooner or later what had happened anyway so might of just get it out of the way. “I found out last night that he was seeing someone behind my back…” I stare at him. “Yeah…. So i ended things and he hasn’t stopped calling me since”. 

“I’m so sorry to hear that Benji”, Victor looks at me sadly. 

“Don’t be. Things with us had been off lately, so it was going to happen sooner or later”, I explained to him. “I thought I would be sadder than this, but I feel ok actually”. I smile at him as he smiles back. 

“That’s good then”, I turned up the radio as we continued to drive along.


	8. road trip part two: straight out of a badly written wattpad story

We finally reached the repair guy in Willacoochee just before ten, just in time as I told Victor earlier on. We quickly take the machine into the garage so the old man can take a look at it to see what was up with it. He takes some times and a lot of tapping, banging and clanging later, he comes to a conclusion. 

“Yeah, she’s broke'', nah shit really? We wouldn’t have brought it all this way if there was nothing wrong with her. 

“Um, so what’s the damage?” I ask him quickly, with us not having a lot of time to waste here. 

“And can it be fixed in an hour or two? I really need to get back to Atlanta”, Victor adds, standing to the side slightly in front of me. 

“Yeah, boys, I know you’re in a hurry, but this old machine is like my wife at a train station.” And him telling us this matters why? “When I try to rush her, she insists we have time to get soup, she orders the soup, she makes ‘em toast the bread bowl…” as I think he will continue just listing things that he’s wife makes him do, but luckily Victor cuts him off. 

“Will you just call us when it’s ready?” 

“I shall”, he leans over to look at the side for something, “and now I shall get my special tools”, we watch him as he starts walking out of the garage to a room very slowly, hoppiling with his wooden walking stick to support him. 

When he is out of sight, I turn around to see Victor with a worried expression on his face. “Relax!” I tell him, “you worrying isn’t gonna make him go any faster, if we get tight on time, you can always go straight to Mia’s”, I speak the truth to him. We’re here now anyway and we won’t be able to do anything until the slow old repair guy fixes the machine. 

“Y-yeah, not like this!” he gestures frantically to his clothing, “Mia’s thing is super fancy!” as soon as he says this, It gives me an idea on how to kill time as well as help him out with picking a killer outfit for his evening with his love. 

“Okay, well, I saw a thrift shop on the way into town!” I tell him ethustically. “And we have time to kill!” 

He smirks, “Okay. Okay fine, but i’m not wearing anything that someone died in!” 

“Let’s go then!” I say ethustically again before pulling on his arm, dragging him behind me. Quickly saying to the repair guy to ring us when it was ready to be picked up, I jumped into the passenger seat of Sarah’s car. I tell Victor the directions into the town center, and we decide to park the car in a nearby car park. 

We rush to the thrift store on the high street, going straight to the formal outfit looking section near the back of the store. The majority of the outfits that are put together on the rack are quite…. Questionable to say the least, but I could see there were a few nicer suits that I think that would work quite well for him, especially as he was meeting her father tonight. 

“Hey Victor!” I say to catch his attention as he goes through the racks of clothes with a serious look on his face that just made me want to laugh. 

“What Benji!”

“We have time… why don’t you try a few on?” I say smiling at him, he looks at me with eyes wide. 

“Seriously?” 

“Oh… dead serious!” I chuckle. He shakes his head before grabbing a few outfits of the racks, eyeing up the dressing rooms, he begins to walk towards them. What shocks me is that he stops halfway to them though. 

“What are you waiting for, come on!” he eggs me on, I laugh before grabbing a few for myself and we enter the dressing rooms. 

We try and try on different outfits, just having fun and having a laugh together. I haven’t felt this connected to a person before and it honestly scares me as i know he doesn't feel the same way. Victor even put on a suit that exactly looked like the blue suit with the ugly frilly shirt to match that Zach Efron wore in High School Musical 3. I got to say that he can pull off even the really ugly suits. 

l found a t-shirt that I really like the look off so I decided to try it on to make sure it fit. It did. Victor came out in a really nice plain and simple black suit that really suited him, I knew from the first time I saw him that it was the one for him to wear tonight, he did really look so handsome in it. Somewhere he found a tennis racket and started to use it as a guitar which made me laugh. We had such a great time, I didn’t want it to end. I honestly thought I was actually seeing the real Victor for the first time. 

Victor decides to stay in the suit so I quickly go to change back into my top I had been wearing. As I had my t-shirt off, I heard a ringtone go and then Victor’s voice. “Uh, the machine’s taking longer than we thought, so I’ll probably miss the auction part, but I’ll be there for the back half”, taking me back to reality, he was talking to his girlfriend on the phone. 

I walk out the dressing room to see Victor saying bye on the phone to Mia, quickly hanging up. He smiles at me before walking off into the dressing room to change into his clothes. I wait for a few minutes until he comes back out. 

“C’mon, we better go pay for your suit and my top”, I smile at him before we head over to the cash register. As I go to buy the t-shirt, my phone rings, I pull it out of my jean pocket to see it was Sarah ringing, ugh. I nod at Victor, silently telling him that I was going to take the phone call quickly from Sarah, I quickly press answer before it went to the answering phone.

“Hey Sarah!” I greet her politely. 

“Don’t hey Sarah me! What is the situation with the machine?” She urges out over the phone. 

“Nothing as of yet, but I expect we’ll hear back soon!” I tell her. She yells something down the phone that I can’t really make out as she is speaking way too quick. “Sarah, stop yelling!” 

“Well, how much longer will it take?” 

“I don’t know how much longer!” 

“Ugh, find out the ETA!” 

“Okay, fine, we will”, I say agreeing as I want to finish up this phone call as quickly as I could. “Now will you please just do a headspace and calm down!” 

“I’m calm, I’m calm. Just give me a coffee machine!” she frantics down the phone, “and I’ll be calm okay? It’s my bread-” I hung up the phone before she could finish the sentence. 

“Hey, so Sarah called”, I say to grab Victor’s attention. “She said to stay in a motel if the machine isn’t ready tonight, that way we can bring it back first thing tomorrow before we open”. Benji! Why did I just say that! She never said that.

“0We would stay the night here?” he says concernedly, due to having to get back to support Mia. 

“Yeah, don’t worry, I know you need to get back, so let’s just pay, drive over to the repair guy and light a fire under his ass”, I say slightly disappointed as I secretly hoped we wouldn’t have to rush back. 

“Okay, okay, cool.” Victor says before his phone rings. He pulls it out and checks the caller ID. “Oh. One sec!” he says before walking a little bit away to answer the phone call. He takes a few minutes on the phone, me not paying attention to what he was saying as I purchased my t-shirt. He comes back over to me. “Uh, hey, I just spoke to Wally. So we’re gonna need to spend the night”. 

Wait what? But I thought he would be eager to get back? What caused him to have a sudden change of heart. “But what about your, uh…” I don’t get to finish what I was saying as he cuts me off.   
“Mia will understand. I mean, work is work, right?” 

“Right, “ I agree, we nod to each other. Slightly excited to spend the night here with Victor. 

“Guess I won’t need this anymore”, he says, placing the suit that he had in his arms down on the counter. “Thank you!” he says to the cashier before walking off. I followed him.   
\---  
I walked into the main lobby of the motel we had booked to stay the night in, as Victor sat in the car, explaining to Mia what was going on over the phone, to get the key for the room. Soon enough, I made my way back to the car to grab Victor, who was wrapping up his phone call. He gets out of the car as soon as he sees me coming out of the main doors. 

As we got into our room for the night, I noticed that there was only one bed. What is this? It’s like a badly written wattpad story. 

We quickly decided that as we had to be up early in the morning due to us having to get back before opening, we would just go ahead and get ready for bed now and go to sleep early. I quickly used the bathroom as Victor allowed me to go first so within 10 minutes I was almost ready to go to bed, I just had to take off my trousers but I thought I would do that in the main room as Victor used the bathroom himself. 

I placed my suspended licence and keys on top of the dresser in the room so I knew where they were for the morning before pulling off my jeans. Sliding under the covers, all I could think about is what a day it had been. I couldn’t believe that I was staying in a hotel room overnight with Victor of all people. 

I decide to go on my phone to pass the time as I wait for Victor to come out of the bathroom. I head straight to facebook, which makes me remember, I go onto my profile and change my relationship status to single. A few minutes after I changed it, I received a text from Lucy. 

Lucy:  
What did he do? Are you okay?

I shake my head. I quickly replied letting her know that I was actually alright and that I would come by her house some point tomorrow afternoon to explain everything that happened if it was ok. 

A few minutes past, I place my phone on the table beside the bed as Victor walks back into the room, now just in his t-shirt and boxers. 

“Uh, hey, look, you could just sleep on the bed, and I’ll sleep on the floor”, I look down at the carpet, I would not let him sleep on that, it looks disgusting and the bed is big enough for the two of us. 

“That carpet is pretty nasty. Come on. There’s plenty of room!” I say to him gesturing to the floor than to the bed, Victor seems to be nervous as he chuckles. 

He walks towards the dresser to place his keys down on the dresser alongside mine, I look over to see him staring at something on top of it, guess I will have to explain now about my slight lie earlier that day. 

“I, uh, thought you never passed your driver’s test?” he says as he looks toward me curiously. I better tell him. 

“That wasn’t exactly true. I have a license. It’s just… suspended”, I tread carefully, I don’t know what I will do now, I know I could trust him with the truth about what happened, but I’m still embarrassed about it. 

“Why? What happened?” he looks at me, still leaning against the dresser. 

“Before I came out, I was kind of a mess” I started to explain what had happened to Victor, not exactly looking at him but I could tell he was listening as I felt eyes on me. “I knew I was gay, but I didn’t want to be, so I drank. A lot,” I debate in my head if I should carry on, but I knew even before I started explaining all this to him, I could trust him. “And then one night, I got super wasted, and decided that I wanted Wendy’s, real bad. So, I took my dad’s car to the drive-through, and that’s exactly what I did… drove through… the Wendy’s”. 

“Oh, my god” Victor says as he walks over to the bed before sitting down next to me crossed legged on top of the covers. 

“Yeah”, I whisper before carrying on. “Luckily no one was hurt. But I totaled my dad’s car”. 

“Wow” he exhales. I can see that me telling him this has changed his opinions on me and I honestly can’t blame him. To be a recovering alcoholic at just 17 really is something. 

“That’s intense! Were you okay, or…?” he seemed surprised but concerned, I felt a glimmer of hope as he stared into my eyes. After that day, I got a 18 month ban on my license and a big fine that my parents paid back for me but I now work in order to pay them back. 

“Yeah,. Yeah, just… banged up”, I say trying to think of the easiest way to say that I wasn’t seriously injured. That’s how I have managed to hide it away from so many people. “But waking up in the hospital with my parents standing over me, it made me realise that I could have died without ever really being who I was,” and that’s the truth, I denied it for so long, it took me basically staring death in the face for me to actually come out. “So that’s when I came out”. 

We stay quiet for a few minutes, just taking in what was just discussed. I’m glad that I have told him but I really don’t know how I would feel if other people knew the truth. “Hey, um, no one at school really knows about the accident, so if, if you could--”   
“Yeah, I won’t say anything”, he says before I can finish what I was saying. I look at him, why does he have to be so… good and nice towards me. “But thank you for telling me”. Why is he thanking me for telling him? I don’t deserve that, he would find out sooner or later anyway, it shouldn’t be made out to be such a big deal that it has been. 

“Yeah, of course, you are so easy to talk to”, I smile at him. “I’m really glad you started working at brasstown”. I tell him honestly. I really am, I haven’t enjoyed working with anyone more than when we are on shift together, we just… I don’t know… jell together I guess. 

“Me, too”, he says to me smiling. We just sit staring at one another smiling after our heart to heart conversation. It wasn’t long before long where reality hits me, Victor had a girlfriend, he would never be my boyfriend. I look away before sighing. 

“I guess we should probably get to sleep, huh?” I say to him. 

“Yeah. Yeah, we should”, he says looking away from me, disappointment running through me. 

I clear my throat as I turn to my side and switch the lamp off, making the room go dark. “Goodnight”. 

“Goodnight”. 

I lay down, closing my eyes, but I didn’t feel any movement of Victor shuffling under the covers. Surely he isn't going to just sleep on top of them. Maybe it was a wrong decision for me to tell him it was ok to sleep on the bed with me if it made him feel uncomfortable. 

Thunder roars outside before rain starts to pour down, which you could quite easily hear from the very thin walls from the motel room. 

I listen to the rain pour down, trying to drift off to sleep before I suddenly feel a hand on my shoulder, Victor’s hand. 

“Hey”, I turned to face him, sitting up slightly to look at him, he seemed quite distressed for a reason. “Is everything okay?”

I don’t get a response from him, instead, he puts one hand on my face and kisses me. Wait what? I find myself kissing back, the feel of his smooth lips felt so fucking good before realisation hits me. I push him off, not wanting to cause any trouble between him and Mia. but the damage has already been done. 

“Victor, no”, I stare at him, he looks so confused, uncertain, distort. 

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Beni!” he says rapidly, rushing off the bed. 

“Victor, wait!” I call after him, but he zooms out into the corridor, the door slamming behind him.


	9. how about a pillow divider?

Rain pours down soaking my clothes as I sit on the park’s bench. The coldness of the water that came down felt so good against my shivering body. I don’t know what I have done to make my life this hard. 

I have forced myself to sleep with many different girls in the hope that I would be normal. But no matter what I do, how hard I try, none of that can compare to the feelings that I feel when I am with him. I don’t want to be like this. 

Yes, since Simon Spier had come out at school, becoming basically a Creekwood Legend, the school has seemed to have become more accepting of the LGBTQ+ community, many thanks for Ms Albright. But there are still so many people who aren’t very accepting, like my father.

I bent down to the bag I had brought with me, containing the secret bottle of whiskey that I swiped out of my Dad’s liquor cabinet. I opened the top carefully, making sure no one was watching, before taking a massive swig of it. I just want to forget this night ever happened. 

There are very few places where I felt at home, that I didn’t feel the need to just get wasted. One of them happens to be playing my guitar but that has become more harder since he joined the band. 

“You really think that is a good idea?” I hear a guy's voice coming from behind me. Oh shit, I turned around to find Derek, the guy who I had been crushing on, how long has he been standing there for? why didn’t I see him before? I say nothing, just taking swig after swig of the bottle. I just want to forget.   
\---  
I sit on the bed in the motel room wondering what the hell just happened. I knew deep down that Victor was holding something back but I couldn’t figure out what. I quickly get off the bed, slipping my trainers on as I don’t particularly want to walk with bare feet to find where he went, especially as I don’t know how far he went. 

I quickly go out of the room, making sure I had the key to get back in to search for Victor, I don’t know what is currently going through his head, but I know for one thing is that I want to be there for him, whatever it is.   
\----  
We sit in silence for quite a while, honestly I didn’t know what I wanted to do, at first, I could just push away all my thoughts and feelings about that sort of stuff like it was water but as I grew older and more wiser, it was becoming more difficult to even ignore what I have been feeling. And with that, I started to drink more and more. Every night ended up with the same conclusions most nights now-a-days. Tonight would be no exemption. 

I feel my head get lighter the more alcohol I take in, although it isn't long until I feel a hand taking the bottle out of my hands. "Wow tiger, you're quite a drinker aren't you?" 

I stare down at Derek, how dare he take my drink, he wipes the top of the bottle before drinking out of it himself. He doesn't have much due to it not having a lot left in the bottle. I realise that I had been looking at him for a long time, longer than I would have wanted so I quickly diverted my attention to the ground. 

I hear Derek sigh, "you're very quiet tonight, that's not like you", Derek says. "Is everything alright B?" I look down at my fidgeting hands, I can't bring myself to speak, I want more alcohol, why can I still feel? I went to stand up so I could head to the nearest store, luckily I had my fake id on me, just in case for moments like this. But Derek stopped me. 

"Will you just talk to me B," he looks concerned, too bad I don't really care. "Please tell me what's wrong!"  
\---  
I looked down the corridor to find Victor sat against the wall, not too far from the room. He had his hands on his knees and as I looked closer I could see he was crying, my heart jumping out of my chest. I know very well how this feels, so I walk over to him slowly, the urge to comfort him strong. 

I crouch down beside him, Victor hasn't appeared to see me. I carefully place my hand on top of his making Victor jump slightly but his focus remains on the ground below us. It’s like he’s afraid to look at me. 

"Do you wanna talk?" I ask him after a few seconds of uncomfortable silence between the two of us. He finally turns his head to face me, it breaks my heart to see him suffering so much. And then, it finally clicks, he has been holding back his true self. I pull him into a hug but he doesn’t exactly hug back. 

“I’m so sorry Benji”, Victor whimpered into my shoulder. 

“Everything’s okay Vic, I’m here”, I just hold him in my arms, letting him sob into my shoulder. I knew how hard it was for me when I was trying to figure myself out. I just want to make sure he knows that I will always be there for him. 

After a while, he pulls away from me, wiping his eyes. “Thanks Benji… I really don’t deserve this”. Deserve what? No one should be alone, no matter who they are. 

“Bullshit Vic, you more than deserve this, you are one of the nicest, kindest people I have ever met, it is an honour to be your friend” I let him know truthfully. He just looks down. 

He remains silent for a while. “I don’t know what to say,” he eventually says. 

“You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to”. I let him know. “We can even speak about something else if you want”. We honestly don’t have to talk about this now but I will have to talk to him about it at some point. “Should we get off this floor and go back to the room? It’s kinda cold out here..” I gesture down to us just sitting on the floor in just our boxers. Kneeling on the ground wasn’t that comfortable either.

I get up off the floor, holding my hand out for Victor to help him up, he hesitates at first. “C’mon Vic, you can’t stay out here all night”, I remind him. He eventually takes my hand before getting up off the floor. Finally. 

As we went back into the motel room for the night, I could sense Victor tense, I knew what he was going to say but there is no way I’m letting him sleep on the floor. I looked around the room quickly and thought of an idea. “Why don’t we take the pillows dotted around the room and make it like a divider on the bed as there is no way either of us is sleeping on that disgusting floor!”

He looks at me like I was a mad man, “I’m sorry, what?” 

“A pillow divider… you put it in the middle of the bed splitting the bed up... didn’t you have sleepovers when you were younger?” I question him. 

“People slept on the floor as all we had was a single bed”, He says, ah right, yeah, I forgot he wasn’t brought up in Atlanta, most of us around here always had at least a double bed so we rarely slept on the floor when we were at other peoples houses. 

“I’ll show you then shall I?” I tease him. But I noticed the discomfort that Victor was holding as he fiddled with his fingers. “That if you are okay with it Victor”. Victor sighs. Opening his mouth like he was about to speak but he closes it before looking at the floor. 

“Benji, I can tell you anything right?” Victor breaks the silence. I look at him, his fiddling more with his fingers anxious. 

“Of course you can, we are friends aren’t we after all”, he can honestly tell me anything and it wouldn’t change my opinion on him. 

He walks over to the bed and takes a seat right on the edge, I don’t move, I just watch him, not wanting to risk anything. 

“I… I’ve been going through something for a really long time now and I didn’t know…” Victor starts to say, looking in every direction apart from mine. “I thought that I could make it work with Mia, I really do like her… but…” he puts his head in his hand and starts crying again, I walk over to him and sit down next to him, putting my hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him, but I knew I couldn’t do much, I had no other choice but to watch him go through this. “I can’t”.


End file.
